No.
179
THE MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITY
OF EVOLUTION by Henry M. Morris*
ICR began publishing its popular free
newsletter Acts & Facts in June 1972,
over 31 years ago. The first two issues
were 6-page, single-column, fold-over
tract-like papers, black-and-white—not
very impressive in appearance.
Issue No. 1 contained only news items
describing some of our early campus
meetings. Specially featured was the
meeting held by Dr. Duane Gish on the
Davis campus of the University of Cali-
fornia. This was the meeting that involved
an unscheduled 2½ hour debate with
world-famous evolutionist, G. Ledyard
Stebbins. A favorable response from the
large student attendance and a very posi-
tive write-up in the student paper even-
tually led to Dr. Gish’s famous cartoon
booklet, Have You Been Brainwashed?
which has been greatly used by the Lord
in the past three decades, being distrib-
uted in the millions all over the world.
That issue also announced the publi-
cation of Dr. Gish’s first book, Evolution:
The Fossils Say No! which has been used
widely and has won many evolutionists
to accept the truth of special creation.
Issue No. 2 also was mostly news, but
it did contain a semi-technical article on
“The Mathematical Impossibility of Evo-
lution” which is being reproduced herein
as a matter of interest—not only of his-
*Dr. Henry Morris is Founder and President Emeritus of ICR.
“Understand, ye brutish among
the people: and ye fools, when will
ye be wise?” (Psalm 94:8).
November 2003
torical interest as the forerunner of our
popular Impact articles (the first of which
was published in the first 1973 issue), but
also because it still seems to show in a
very simple way that evolution is impos-
sible—no one, to my knowledge, has ever
tried to refute it.
The third issue of Acts & Facts re-
ported on the first ICR-sponsored expe-
dition to Mount Ararat in search of
Noah’s Ark, led by John Morris. The first
Impact article, however, was published
in the January/February 1973 issue on the
subject, “Evolution, Creation, and the
Public Schools,” urging that concerned
citizens should use an educational and
persuasion approach, rather than legisla-
tion or litigation, in trying to get a bal-
anced approach to origins teaching ac-
cepted in the public schools.
In spite of this advice, however, many
well-meaning creationists have tried—
always unsuccessfully—to try to force
this issue. We still recommend education
and persuasion as the best policy.
Anyway, an Impact article on sig-
nificant scientific or apologetics topics
has been published every month since
that first 1973 Acts & Facts. The fore-
runner of all these, still quite valid, I
believe, is reproduced with a few modi-
fications below:
a
The Mathematical Impossibility
of Evolution
According to the most-widely accepted
theory of evolution today, the sole
mechanism for producing evolution is
that of random mutation combined with
natural selection. Mutations are random
changes in genetic systems. Natural se-
lection is considered by evolutionists to
be a sort of sieve, which retains the
“good” mutations and allows the others
to pass away.
Since random changes in ordered sys-
tems almost always will decrease the
amount of order in those systems, nearly
all mutations are harmful to the organ-
isms which experience them. Neverthe-
less, the evolutionist insists that each
complex organism in the world today has
arisen by a long string of gradually accu-
mulated good mutations preserved by
natural selection. No one has ever actu-
ally observed a genuine mutation occur-
ring in the natural environment which was
beneficial (that is, adding useful genetic
information to an existing genetic code),
and therefore, retained by the selection
process. For some reason, however, the
idea has a certain persuasive quality about
it and seems eminently reasonable to
many people—until it is examined quan-
titatively, that is!
For example, consider a very simple
putative organism composed of only 200
integrated and functioning parts, and the
problem of deriving that organism by this
type of process. The system presumably
must have started with only one part and
then gradually built itself up over many
generations into its 200-part organization.
The developing organism, at each succes-
sive stage, must itself be integrated and
functioning in its environment in order
to survive until the next stage. Each suc-
cessive stage, of course, becomes statis-
tically less likely than the preceding one,
b
since it is far easier for a complex sys-
tem to break down than to build itself up.
A four-component integrated system can
more easily “mutate” (that is, somehow
suddenly change) into a three-component
system (or even a four-component non-
functioning system) than into a five-com-
ponent integrated system. If, at any step
in the chain, the system mutates “down-
ward,” then it is either destroyed alto-
gether or else moves backward, in an evo-
lutionary sense.
Therefore, the successful production
of a 200-component functioning organ-
ism requires, at least, 200 successive,
successful such “mutations,” each of
which is highly unlikely. Even evolution-
ists recognize that true mutations are very
rare, and beneficial mutations are ex-
tremely rare—not more than one out of a
thousand mutations are beneficial, at the
very most.
But let us give the evolutionist the
benefit of every consideration. Assume
that, at each mutational step, there is
equally as much chance for it to be good
as bad. Thus, the probability for the suc-
cess of each mutation is assumed to be
one out of two, or one-half. Elementary
statistical theory shows that the prob-
ability of 200 successive mutations be-
ing successful is then (½) 200, or one
chance out of 1060. The number 1060, if
written out, would be “one” followed by
sixty “zeros.” In other words, the chance
that a 200-component organism could be
formed by mutation and natural selec-
tion is less than one chance out of a tril-
lion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion!
Lest anyone think that a 200-part sys-
tem is unreasonably complex, it should
be noted that even a one-celled plant or
animal may have millions of molecular
“parts.”
The evolutionist might react by say-
ing that even though any one such mu-
tating organism might not be successful,
surely some around the world would be,
especially in the 10 billion years (or 1018
seconds) of assumed earth history. There-
fore, let us imagine that every one of the
earth’s 1014 square feet of surface harbors
a billion (i.e., 109) mutating systems and
that each mutation requires one-half sec-
ond (actually it would take far more time
than this). Each system can thus go
through its 200 mutations in 100 seconds
and then, if it is unsuccessful, start over
for a new try. In 1018 seconds, there can,
therefore, be 1018/102, or 1016, trials by
each mutating system. Multiplying all
these numbers together, there would be a
total possible number of attempts to de-
velop a 200-component system equal to
1014 (109) (1016), or 1039 attempts. Since
the probability against the success of any
one of them is 1060, it is obvious that the
probability that just one of these 1039 at-
tempts might be successful is only one
out of 1060/1039, or 1021.
All this means that the chance that any
kind of a 200-component integrated func-
tioning organism could be developed by
mutation and natural selection just once,
anywhere in the world, in all the assumed
expanse of geologic time, is less than one
chance out of a billion trillion. What pos-
sible conclusion, therefore, can we de-
rive from such considerations as this ex-
cept that evolution by mutation and
natural selection is mathematically and
logically indefensible!
Discussion
There have been many other ways in
which creationist writers have used
probability arguments to refute evolu-
tionism, especially the idea of random
changes preserved, if beneficial, by
natural selection. James Coppedge de-
voted almost an entire book, Evolution:
Possible or Impossible (Zondervan,
1973, 276 pp.), to this type of approach.
I have also used other probability-type
arguments to the same end (see, e.g.,
Science and Creation, Master Books,
pp. 161–201).
The first such book, so far as I know,
to use mathematics and probability in
refuting evolution was written by a pas-
tor, W. A. Williams, way back in 1928.
Entitled, Evolution Disproved, it made a
great impression on me when I first read
it about 1943, at a time when I myself
was still struggling with evolution.
In fact, evolutionists themselves have
attacked traditional Darwinism on the
same basis (see the Wistar Institute Sym-
posium, Mathematical Challenges to the
Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolu-
tion, 1967, 140 pp.). While these scien-
tists did not reject evolution itself, they
did insist that the Darwinian randomness
postulate would never work.
Furthermore, since the law of increas-
ing entropy, or the second law of thermo-
dynamics, is essentially a statement of
probabilities, many writers have also used
that law itself to show that evolution on
any significant scale is essentially impos-
sible. Evolutionists have usually ignored
the arguments or else used vacuous argu-
ments against them (“Anything can hap-
pen given enough time”; “The earth is an
open system, so the second law doesn’t
apply”; “Order can arise out of chaos
through dissipative structures”; etc.).
In the real world of scientific obser-
vation, as opposed to metaphysical
speculation, however, no more complex
system can ever “evolve” out of a less
complex system, so the probability of the
naturalistic origin of even the simplest
imaginary form of life is zero.
The existence of complexity of any
kind is evidence of God and creation. “Lift
up your eyes on high, and behold who hath
created these things, that bringeth out their
host by number: He calleth them all by
names by the greatness of His might, for
that He is strong in power; not one faileth”
(Isaiah 40:26).
c
HOW DID THE VERTICAL COLUMNS
TOWER FORM?
Visitors often marvel at the beautiful col-
umns of rock standing at places like
Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. There a
mountain of rock rises from the ground
in a series of regular, multi-sided col-
umns, extending scores of feet into the
air. Columns at the Giant’s Causeway in
Ireland and elsewhere seem so precise
that fanciful legends have grown up
around them.
These huge columns consist of once-
molten igneous rock which was intruded
into other sediments, or de-
posited and later covered
with other sediments. As
hot, molten lava cools and
solidifies, it shrinks in vol-
ume and fractures along
vertical planes, with geo-
metric considerations often
orienting the fractures into
five or six-sided polygons.
Hardened basalt is usually
much harder than surround-
ing sediments whose ero-
sion often exposes spec-
tacular walls of columns.
Vertical columns 40' high at
Elsewhere, such hori-
Giant’s Causeway in Ireland.
zontal layers of vertical col-
umns cover extensive areas, far larger then
similar layers which have formed in his-
toric times. This seems to speak eloquently
of past volcanic processes being regionally
catastrophic, proceeding at rates, scales, and
intensities far exceeding the ones we ob-
serve today. Surely Earth’s geologic past
was different from its present, particularly
during the great flood of Noah’s day. Evi-
dence of catastrophic processes operating
on a regional scale—that’s what we would
expect to find as results of the Flood.
© 2003 by ICR • All Rights Reserved
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d
AT DEVIL’S
by John D. Morris, Ph.D.
A persistent scientific objection to the
Biblical doctrine of the young earth has
arisen over this issue, however, claiming
that the necessary cooling time for such
immense volumes of basalt would take far
longer than mere thousands of years. Once
again, good scientific research provides an
answer, and it has to do with water.
While much heat is removed by
simple conduction from the lava to the
surrounding rock or air, a surprising
amount of heat is removed by water.
Water is present in any lava
flow or intrusion, and as
this superheated water
flashes to steam and exits
the lava, it carries much
heat away with it. Further-
more, as rain or surface
water penetrates to the hot
layer, it too heats, turns to
steam and leaves, cooling
the lava. Experiments and
observations have shown
this convection of heat to
be the key. Measured rates
of cooling from the surface
to the interior exceed sev-
eral feet per month. The
vertical joints which form the distinctive
columns facilitate the migration of water
in and steam out of the rock.
The next time you notice these inter-
esting vertical columns, just think of the
great Flood of Noah’s day. Think of cata-
strophic events, on a large scale and at a
rapid pace. And put it all in its “Back to
Genesis” perspective.
See more on the formation of basaltic
columns at:
icr.org/research/as/igneousbodies.html